"It is indeed beautiful," replied their governess; "and think of seeing
a whole mountain covered with such trees! A traveler speaks of them as
the most solemnly impressive trees in the world, and says that their
massive trunks, clothed with a scaly texture almost like the skin of
living animals and contorted with all the irregularities of age, may
well have suggested those ideas of royal, almost divine, strength and
solidity which the sacred writers ascribe to them.--Turn to the
ninety-second psalm, Clara, and read the twelfth verse."

"'The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree; he shall grow like a
cedar in Lebanon.'"

"In the thirty-first chapter of Ezekiel," continued Miss Harson, "it is
written, 'Behold, the Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon with fair
branches, and with a shadowing shroud, and of an high stature; and his
top was among the thick boughs. The waters made him great, the deep set
him up on high with her rivers running round about his plants, and sent
out her little rivers unto all the trees of the field. Therefore his
height was exalted above all the trees of the field and his boughs were
multiplied, and his branches became long because of the multitude of
waters, when he shot forth. All the fowls of heaven made their nests in
his boughs, and under his branches did all the beasts of the field bring
forth their young, and under his shadow dwelt all great nations.'"

[Illustration: CEDAR OF LEBANON.]

"Are the leaves like those of our cedar trees?" asked Malcolm, who was
studying the picture quite intently. "The tree doesn't look like 'em."

"They are somewhat like them," replied his governess, "being slender and
straight and about an inch long. They grow in tufts, and in the centre
of some of the tufts there is a small cone which is very pretty and
often brought to this country by travelers for their friends at home. In
_The Land and the Book_ there is a picture of small branches with cones,
and the author says of the cedar: 'There is a striking peculiarity in
the shape of this tree which I have not seen any notice of in books of
travel. The branches are thrown out horizontally from the parent trunk.
These again part into limbs, which preserve the same horizontal
direction, and so on down to the minutest twigs; and even the
arrangement of the clustered leaves has the same general tendency. Climb
into one, and you are delighted with a succession of verdant floors
spread around the trunk and grad